Vermont bloomy in spruce bark, spoonable with sweet cream and woodsy notes.
Spoonable bark-wrapped bloomy from Jasper Hill Farm, Vermont. Sweet cream, button mushroom, woodsy spruce. Scoop from the top. Ships to 48 states.
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Harbison is a bark-wrapped, bloomy-rind cow's milk cheese from Jasper Hill Farm in Greensboro, Vermont, made from pasteurized milk of local pastured herds. It comes as a small 9-ounce wheel belted in a strip of spruce cambium, the inner bark harvested right from the woodlands of the farm. That bark belt is doing real work, holding the paste together as it slowly loosens in the cellar over 6 to 13 weeks of affinage.
Under the rustic bloomy rind, the paste is spoonable. You cut off the top like a lid and go in with a spoon. The flavor leads with sweet cream and button mushroom, then the spruce comes through as a resinous, woodsy pull, with a little lemon and mustard tickle on the back. It's rich and lactic without being sharp, and the woodsy finish sticks around.
When the wheel is a touch younger and the paste is still holding shape, you can peel the bark and slice a portion. Once it fully loosens, leave the bark on and treat it as a communal dish. Right in the sweet spot of what a small-format American bloomy can be.
Spoonable under the bloomy rind, with a soft, oozing paste held in shape by its spruce-bark belt. Scoop from the top with a spoon.
Sweet cream and button mushroom up front, then a woodsy pull from the spruce bark with a little lemon and mustard on the back.
Long and woodsy on the palate, the spruce and vegetal notes hanging on well past the swallow.
Rich sweet-cream lactic core, buttery and just barely tangy, the way a good bloomy from pasteurized cow's milk should read.
A quiet browned-butter note comes through the sweet cream, but nuttiness sits behind the woodsy and lactic character.
Button mushroom and forest floor from the bloomy rind, layered with resinous spruce from the bark wrap.
A gentle mustardy tickle on the back of the palate, more herbal than peppery.
Bloomy rind
The rustic bloomy rind is edible and carries most of the woodsy, mushroomy character. The spruce cambium belt is not eaten, but its resin scents the paste from the outside in.
Harbison stands on its own, but the right partners turn a wedge into a moment. Regional pairings first — they were built for each other.
The oak and yeast of a barrel-aged white or a sour beer meet the woodsy spruce note head-on, while the bubbles in Champagne cut through the rich, spoonable paste.
Sweet-tart fruit and mostarda balance the sweet cream and woodsy pull of the paste, and crusty bread gives you something to spoon it onto.
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